Why We Use A WEEKLY Budget Now

For the longest time we were using a monthly budget when we should’ve been budgeting weekly all along. Now that we split up our weekly paycheck it’s become so much easier to save our money and see where it all goes.

We’ve also started using the envelope method to separate our money. We have four envelopes: rent, car payment, utilities and groceries. We don’t use any of this money for ANYTHING else, period. So far it’s worked wonders for us, before we weren’t able to keep up with our money at all and our payments were consistently late. If you haven’t given it a try I definitely suggest trying it out, I’m honestly amazed by how much it’s helped our family.

Here’s an example of a weekly budget:

Paycheck: $400

Rent: $100

Car payment: $80

Utilities: $60

Internet: $20

Groceries: $50

Misc. and/or savings: $90

Basically we divided all of our bills by four. This is how we know how much to take out of each check and put into the envelope every week. At the end of each month you’ll have enough for all of your bills. No more scrambling, no more “oh no what did I do with that $100?” because it’s all right there in the envelopes. The most important rule to follow though is you cannot touch the money in the envelopes except when you’re paying the specified bill.

This is not our exact budget above, but you get the idea. I don’t know why we never thought of doing it this way before, but it’s the biggest life saver we’ve come across so far, and the envelopes make it that much easier because we have a place to put the money directly into rather than putting it all into a bank account (where it’s much more likely to get spent.)

If you aren’t already doing this I definitely recommend trying it, you could end up saving way more money than you are currently.